A FORMER police inspector who was Coventry’s first fingerprinting expert and was awarded the MBE has died at the age of 78.

Alan Maddison, of Saxon Close, Binley Woods, died from cancer on New Year’s Eve and leaves his widow Pat, three children and four grandchildren.

After attending Binley School and completing national service, Mr Maddison joined the police and after his probation started his career as a village beat bobby in Binley.

He met his wife Pat while they were still children and the couple married in 1951 in St Bartholomew’s Church, Binley.

They went on to have Lynda, aged 56, Dawn, 55, and David, 48.

Mrs Maddison said her husband’s police career was very important to him and he rose to the rank of inspector, based in Warwick.

She said: “He was the first finger printing expert in Warwickshire. When he left Binley he went to Rugby for a while and then Warwick. He became the federation representative for four counties, West Midlands, West Mercia, Warwickshire and Staffordshire and was a full time rep until he left the force.

“He was a very caring and funny man and he couldn’t stand injustice. He was lovely.”

In an interview with the Coventry Telegraph in 2002, he recalled when he was on duty on the day of the consecration of the city’s new cathedral.

After being told no-one was allowed to park on Priory Street he approached the driver of a Rolls Royce and told him to move, only to find it was the architect Basil Spence. He insisted the architect move on, until an inspector intervened, and Mr Maddison was moved to Broadgate where he stopped another Rolls Royce – this time containing David Dimbleby– and ended up riding in the television presenter’s car back to the cathedral. In 1982 he was awarded the MBE for his services to fighting crime and representing the force on the National Police Federation.

He was thrilled to find out his nephew Major John Maddison had been given the same accolade in this year’s Honours for his services to the Royal Marines.

“John rang Alan to tell him and it’s lovely he found out about it before he died. He thought his own award was a wonderful honour and it meant a lot to him,” Mrs Maddison said.

Mr Maddison was fan of speedway and, later in life, played bowls. He was a Coventry City fan, often going to the Ricoh Arena with his daughter. His funeral is on Monday January 19 at 11am at St Bartholomew’s Church, Binley, followed by a private cremation.

Refugees’ champion

THE vicar who founded a Warwickshire charity to help the victims of violent conflict has died at the age of 93.

The Rev Pat Ashe, of St Mary’s Church, Leamington, set up international aid charity Cord to build orphanages in Saigon during the Vietnam War in 1967. As the city finally fell, many children were airlifted to new adoptive homes in the UK as part of his life-saving mission.

After Vietnam, the charity worked with refugees from the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. Today the organisation employs 800 people in more than 26 countries.

“Hundreds of thousands of people who have had to flee for their lives from violent conflict, have been helped and supported to a new life by the organisation which he founded.

Mr Ashe died in hospital in Surrey after a short illness. His wife, Marion, whom he met in Cairo at the end of the Second World War, died last July. He is survived by seven children and 18 grandchildren.